


Failure Of The Youth

by Donsular



Category: Mary Poppins (Movies)
Genre: Blood and Violence, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Horror, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Monsters, Nightmares, Psychological Trauma, oh boy this is dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:14:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 18,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28029861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Donsular/pseuds/Donsular
Summary: Mary Poppins knows lots of things. She’s been on countless adventures. She’s met thousands of people. But every now and then, something comes up that even she hasn’t seen before. And maybe this time, she won’t be able to keep so well composed when she’s faced with her worst nightmare.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	1. Dust

On a mismatched day on Cherry Tree Lane, dark grey clouds loomed overhead despite it being the middle of summer, and Georgie was quietly stressing.  
  
It had been 30 minutes and 24 seconds since it happened. 25. 26. 27. Ok. Counting wouldn’t help. But that didn’t stop Georgie from counting down to his impending doom. While playing outside, he had managed to kick his ball a little too hard and at an awkward angle. The ball went rogue and flew into the air, shattering the glass case of the streetlight and getting stuck inside. He’d hoped nobody would notice, after all, he’d been alone outside at the time, as the twins had gone back inside to find some other things to bring out.  
  
They’d been rather suspicious when he’d come inside, drawn the curtains in the middle of the afternoon and said he didn’t want to play out anymore. It had been a rather curious sight to them. And when Mary overheard, she seemed to think the same. And so, she had quickly gone outside to see what damage had been done.  
  
Needless to say, she was furious. But not the normal kind of furious. Her kind. She didn’t raise her voice, but she had been sharp and stern.  
  
“I assume this was you?”  
  
“Yes...”  
  
“Upstairs. Now.” And that was as far as it had gone. He had done as she wanted and gone upstairs, but not immediately to his room, having chosen to peer out from the landing to try and figure out how mad she was. But she had been totally calm after that. When she called the Worthing office to tell them what had happened, she sounded perfectly casual, and almost cheerful as she chatted to, who he assumed was Jack, over the phone.  
  
After a minute or so, he’d come to the conclusion that she would continue to act in her scarily calm manner, and went to sit on his bed to think about what he did. But instead, he just counted how long it had been since it happened. And as the time continued on, the door opened.  
  
Mary had only come up to put away some of the children’s clothes, completely ignoring the little boy sitting on the bed. She was normally inclined to take charge of discipline herself, but it was usually a ‘forgive and forget’ kind of method. For something as bad as this, she thought it would probably be best for Michael to deal with it as he saw fit when he got back from work. Until then, giving him a chance to reflect seemed like a suitable punishment to her.  
  
Georgie watched her hanging up the laundry in silence. What was he meant to say? Was he even meant to say anything? It was as if she was giving him the silent treatment and was waiting for him to crack. And it was jolly well working. Her graceful movements were just like always, and he still couldn’t quite comprehend how unbothered she was by the whole situation. He was also surprised that she was totally ignoring him. Normally, she’d say something to him while in the room with him. She really was committed to this punishment.  
  
“I’m sorry.” He wasn’t quite sure why he said it. It just sort of came out. Maybe the silence was finally getting to him. But whatever the case, it certainly caught Mary’s attention, as she paused halfway through putting a folded pair of trousers onto their shelf in the wardrobe. It was only for a second, before she continued her motion, turning to face him once the clothing had been put in its respective place.  
  
“And what is that for?” She said, crossing her arms over her chest.  
  
“For breaking the lamp. I got a little too excited and wasn’t being careful.” She looked at him quizzically, making a noise that sound like a doubtful hum. He wasn’t sure what to do when she didn’t say anything else, yet also didn’t go back to her folding, as if she was expecting him to say something else. But what?  
  
“Are you mad at me?” He asked shyly.  
  
“And why would I be angry?” She said, her mouth open, slightly aghast, as if she was shocked by the very idea of someone thinking she was angry.  
  
“We all make mistakes,” she continued, “if you never made mistakes, how would you be able to distinguish the right thing to do? And anyway, it was only a silly little thing. Hardly something to be fretting over for too long. No, you should never regret such small things.” He supposed she was right, and didn’t say anything as Mary went back to her folding.  
  
It made him think, if mistakes made you become a better person, then Mary must have made plenty of mistakes in her life. He couldn’t imagine her getting things wrong. But she had to have done at some point, right? He watched her for a little longer before he managed to finally build up the courage to ask,  
  
“Do you have any regrets, Mary?” She turned her head briefly to address but, but then continued to focus on her work while she spoke, coming to the final shirt as she did so.  
  
“Of course, I’ve made mistakes, I wasn’t born perf-”  
  
“I know that. But do you regret anything?” She froze for a moment, and as Georgie realised what he’d just done, he prepared himself for a lecture on how he shouldn’t interrupt people. But despite this, such a lecture never came. Infact, he didn’t get any proper response to his question at all, other than Mary saying,  
  
“Never you mind that,” before quickly retreating to the balcony so she could shake out and fold a pair of freshly washed blankets.  
  
When she stepped onto the balcony, she had been lucky to find that it had been the very moment that Jack had arrived on his bicycle to fix the lamp and to be the perfect distraction from the current topic of conversation. He looked like he was coming to light the lamp on any normal day, only this time, the front basket was filled with a few sheets of glass to be fitted and the tools to do just that.  
  
He’d been quick to get to work, as he had quite a long list of jobs to do that day. So, he climbed the ladder and set about removing the pieces of glass that hadn’t yet fallen from their frame after the shattering, after tossing the ball into the garden of number 17, of course. It was a rather fiddly and tedious job, and he cut himself more than a few times, but he was making progress, slowly but surely.  
  
“I’m terribly sorry about all this, Jack,” She said, gesturing to the mess, “I know you’re probably very busy today.”  
  
“It’s alright,” Jack said, “kids will be kids.” Their conversation pattered on at a relaxed pace, both of them taking pauses between words to focus on what they were doing. And for Georgie to observe, it was rather unusual to him that neither of them were particularly bothered by what he’d done. He’d expected Jack to be at least a little irritated with him.  
  
It was after a few more minutes of quiet that Jack noticed something about the lamp, other than the damage. After clearing out the remaining glass shards, he’d tossed them down to the pavement to sweep up later. But in doing so, he’d managed to reveal an unusual crack in the bottom of the lamp’s case.  
  
It was rather strange to say the least. It looked more like the case was made of fabric and had been torn, rather than a crack. And how would a ball crack a metal case in the first place? The edges of the fissure were covered in strange golden specs as if they were discarded pollen, framing an infinitely black hole that had the same golden specs floating around inside. He tried to look under the lamp to see where this hole led to, but this didn’t lead to any answers, just another question.  
  
“What are you looking at?” Mary had been rather confused by his enquiring gaze at the case, but she assumed he was doing something to fit the glass.  
  
“There’s a weird crack here. But it’s covered in this gold stuff. I’ve no idea what it is.” Mary had given him as quizzical look as she tried to see what he was inspecting, but found that her view from the balcony made that quite impossible.  
  
“What you mean, gold stuff?”  
  
“I don’t know, it looks a bit like sand, but it’s really yellowy and metallic. I’ve never seen anything like it.” Reaching his hand into the case, he gently tapped the golden grains, testing them, before brushing his fingers over them, collecting a small sample for him to get a better look at.  
  
Rubbing it between his fingers, he still couldn’t figure out what it was. But his heart skipped a beat when he felt a hot burning sensation starting to emanate from it. The grains scratched and stung his skin, but when he panicked and tried to brush them off with his sleeve, they instead just clung to the fabric, sizzling right through it.  
  
“What the hell is this stuff?!” Mary watched as Jack became more frantic, but when she finally saw his hand seemingly disintegrate, she realised something was very VERY wrong. She raced away from the balcony and headed out to him as Jack desperately tried to get rid of the flakes that were beginning to spread over his body. But it seemed like they just multiplied and stuck to every part of him as more came pouring out of the crack. As more of his body began to dissipate, the flakes that had been responsible raced away back into the crack, and Jack found himself flailing out in the hopes he could catch them to undo what they’d already done. He was barely able to balance on the ladder as he continued to panic, even before his legs burnt away. And his torso had also vanished before help came, too. As Mary finally made it outside, she was just in time to see the last of leerie vanish into dust.  
  
Then everything was silent.  
  
Mary just stared in horror at the scene. What was that? Where did he go?!  
  
She would never admit it, but in that moment, she was completely gripped with fear. She’d never seen anything like this before. And she hated when she didn’t know what things were. But now that she was faced with just that.  
  
Of course, the children all came out, having been quite startled by her sudden race to get outside, but were sorely disappointed to see nothing there. It was only Georgie who knew who had been there, who noticed that anything had gone missing.  
  
“Where’s Jack?” He asked innocently. Mary didn’t know how to answer. For the first time in years, she didn’t know what happened. Mary looked frantically between the lamp post and the ladder, completely at a loss for words. However, despite this, she just about managed to cling on to her usual composed and unbothered expression.  
  
The children waited for an answer for several long moments, before Mary finally gave up her investigation and admitted out loud,  
  
“I don’t know.”  
  
The children looked aghast at her, completely confused that she had no answers at all.  
  
“But you’re Mary Poppins!” John started, “You know everything! You’re practically perfect in every way!” Mary let out a defeated sigh that probably sounded more like an irritated huff as she said,  
  
“Yes. Practically. There’s always room for improvement. And, no, I don’t know everything, I’ve just experienced a lot. This is new even to me.”  
  
Mary approached the lamppost, looking up to see some of the golden dust scattered around the ladder and the broken case. Had she not seen what had happened to Jack, she would also have been inclined to try and touch the matter. So, with that in mind, she approached and tried to at least get a closer look.  
  
Yes, it’s a rather strange material, isn’t it? I’ve never seen anything quite like it.” She paused when she heard footsteps behind her, turning to see the children coming closer.  
  
“Stay right where you are!” She ordered, “I don’t know what this will do so I don’t want you getting too close. Jack’s already gone; I don’t want to have to worry about you all aswell.” She wasn’t sure if the children heard the slight wobble in her voice or not, but if they did, they certainly didn’t mention anything. She could fix this. Of course she could. She was Mary Poppins for goodness sake! But based on the growing fear of the children’s face, she wasn’t so confident anymore.  
  
Wait… why were they so scared all of a sudden?  
  
The shadow grew quite quickly, suddenly looming over the four of them. And when Mary turned back around, she was met with a swarm of dust. They dust that made Jack disappear before their very eyes.  
  
They didn’t even have a chance to scream.


	2. Into The Black & White

_She opened the door… what was this place?_

Darkness. That was the first thing he noticed. He was surrounded by darkness. One minute, Jack had been up his ladder on Cherry Tree Lane, and the next thing he knew, she was dragged away to… actually, he didn’t really know where he was.

At that moment in time, he was standing on a street corner that certainly looked like somewhere in London, and he certainly felt like he knew the area, yet he found no significant landmark or recognisable building to work out where he’d been taken. He was just… there.

The whole world seemed to have transformed into a bleak, black and white scene on a wet winter night, rather than the sunny blue afternoon skies he’s been enjoying only moments earlier. And yet, despite the monochrome colour of the street around him, he remained his usual colourful saturation. Shops were scattered around him, and while their signs were definitely written in English, he still couldn’t discern what they read, almost as if he’d suddenly forgotten how to read. And looking through the windows didn’t help either. He still couldn’t figure it out as each window was filled with a variety of items, that were almost enough to make him think it was just a house, had there not been price tags on everything. And even they seemed wrong. They were all priced the same, at 19s 09d whether it was a seemingly brand-new radio or a loaf of stale bread. He might have explored inside if the surprisingly small doors hadn’t simply been painted onto the walls. Several streetlamps lined the way, but despite being lit, they only seemed to cast further darkness over the grime covered cobbles, to the point that Jack was seriously struggling to see. Each step he took, he risked tripping and falling on his face. But while the pavement was flat, it was also only about twenty centimetres wide, and as the ground floor of each of the buildings seemed to only cut off at his shoulders, it left the multitude of signs sticking out from the wall at the perfect height to smack him in the face. So, he was forced to struggle along the uneven cobbled road.

He still didn’t really want to think about how exactly he’d been taken to this place, so instead, he chose to try walking forwards and focus on the present, even if there wasn’t much else to see. And there really wasn’t much else at all. Infact, the only thing that changed was that there were no more side streets ejecting themselves from the main road. Other than that, nothing at all changed. It stayed so much the same, that the street began to repeat itself. The shops reappeared in the same order; he dodged the exact same sized puddle every thirteen steps. Every four lampposts had the same remains of a badly peeled off sticker at the same height, and every tenth shop window had the same painted on crack in the same place. The whole world was fake. And it was all exactly the same.

He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t scared. He would have much rather been taken to a place that he recognised, at least. And a place with people would have been nice too. Even if they were strangers. It didn’t matter. He was good at making friends. But this place was just so… cold. He couldn’t understand it. He’d never quite known a place to be so cold. And it wasn’t just the kind that made you shiver like ice-cold wind on a blustery day. It was like how a wall was cold. There was something impersonal about it. Like it wanted to hurt you, but without any specific intention. It chilled you to the bone because it didn’t care whether you lived or died. And now he was stuck there. Lost. He just wanted to know what was going on. Was that so much to ask?

He carried on regardless.

The thumping of his heart seemed to gradually increase off its own volition as the fact finally sunk in that this strange street went on forever. He somewhat regretted not checking the name of the street when he had been standing on that corner, but by now, he already assumed that if he turned back, that corner would be gone, and he’d simply walk forever in a different direction. As he continued to walk, a feeling of anticipation settled over him. No matter how hard he tried, Jack simply couldn’t shake the feeling that there were butterflies in his stomach, and in such a strange world, he half expected actual butterflies to physically burst from his body at a moments notice, which only made him feel worse. Nothing about this world was what he expected and so he felt like he had to prepare for anything imaginable. And as his mind raced a cargo ship at a million miles an hour carrying a million crates that each contained a million horrible ideas, he was beginning to do just that.

He wasn’t sure when he stopped breathing. All he knew was that he was suddenly gasping for air. His lungs seemed to constrict and strain to push quick and shallow breaths past his blue lips, the suddenly hot air providing little support. His eyes darted left and right for any sign of escape, but when nothing came, a tingling in his muscles became a screaming urge to run. NO. SPRINT!

He had to get out. He had to get away. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe! He tried to push through the lightheadedness and the tunnel vision, as he focused on the endless road ahead of him. If he looked really hard, he could almost see a way out. And while he was almost certain that it was just a mirage, there solely to mess with his head, it was the only thing keeping him from bursting into tears. His cold clammy hands tensed into fists as he pushed himself to go faster. Further. As if he could outpace the world itself and the path being laid out ahead of him. Maybe, just maybe, he could reach the edge of the world before more could be created and jump into the abyss and finally be rid of this madness.

But of course, the madness had only just begun.

There, far away in the distance, stood a mysterious figure. And despite all of Jack’s effort to run further, he froze the moment he laid eyes on them. He tried to fight whatever force was holding him back, or to call out despite how dry his mouth was. Yet something seemed to clamp him mouth shut and fuse his feet to the cobbles beneath him.

He needn’t worry for long, however, as the world around them suddenly seemed to warp to draw the figure closer to him at an unnatural speed. And as soon as it happened, he wished it didn’t.

The person before him, if you could even call it human, looked more like a ragdoll, that hung limp in front on him, just an inch or so from the ground. There must have been a person beneath it, but the thing was covered in what looked to have been the remains of a badly weathered burlap sack. While many areas had been held together with messy and unnecessarily wide stitching that caused the fabric itself to bunch up, many holes had been left or even seemed to have been deliberately torn apart, revealing horribly diseased skin beneath, that was leathery and rubbed raw. Puss oozed from countless sores and infected wounds, mixing together with a small amount of blood that seemed to coat the insides of most of these holes. The face itself simply stared, a line had been ripped open to form a mouth, which just looked like a hole in the jaw. And unlike the other holes scattered across its body, this one had nothing beneath it. Nothing at all. So much nothing that it simply stretched into an endless black abyss, and had Jack had the courage to come closer, he would’ve felt that it was just as cold as he’d expect such a place to be. But it wasn’t the mouth that scared him the most. It was its eyes. Its cold dead eyes. First of all, they had been placed as if to cover the holes behind them, that, like the mouth, led into another cold abyss. But they hadn’t been placed well, leaving the one on the right a little too far to the right, and the other being way too far up and to the left. And they weren’t even eyes, they were buttons, hanging loosely to the face by filthy and fraying threads. The brass had four central holes in each that all seemed to contain a tiny glass eye, and as the whole creature loomed over him (they were roughly the same size, but its floating gave it an edge), it did something that Jack hadn’t thought would be possible. It blinked.

Suddenly, without moving its limbs or the typical rise and fall of a person’s body as they walked, the thing moved towards him, once again, thanks to the whole world warping around them and pushing it closer to him. And yet, no matter how hard Jack wanted to scream and run away, he couldn’t. And he was forced to hold entirely still as the creature passed through him entirely.

Like he wasn’t  
Even  
There.

He’d never felt fear like it.

Jack was frozen for several seconds afterwards, though this time, not against his will. This time it was purely due to shock. And he only began to move when he saw someone come out of one of the doors to his left:

Angus.

Jack practically dived across the street to reach his friend, which he easily recognised, even though he had his back to him while he shut the door that he’d just come from. He looked blessedly normal, well, he was still black and white like the world around him, but other than that, he was exactly the same as he’d always known him to be.

Jack could hardly contain his excitement as he bounded up to him and tapped him on the shoulder, already unable to stop himself from talking,

“Angus! Thank god you’re here! I thought I was alone, but now you’re here too, we can figure out what’s going on togeth…er.” His sentence almost ended before he could get all the words out because of what he saw next. For Angus turned around to reveal he had the same button eyes hiding black holes as the strange creature had. He looked behind him frantically, to check if it was still there, or whether the monster had simply taken the form of his friend to torment him. But no. It was still standing there, just a little way off down the street, in the middle of the road. And yet, as he turned to Angus, even despite his altered features, something inside him was screaming at him to stay with this thing. That he would keep him safe. But before he could put that thought into words, Not-Quite-Angus’ face morphed into one of utter disgust at the sight of him, and he leant away from him as if he would rather die than let Jack touch him again. And then he was off, walking down the road and far away from him.

Jack chased after him. Of course he did. Right now, nothing in the world seemed more important than being with someone he at least somewhat recognised. But as he tried to follow, Angus only looked back, cringed, and hurried along even more.

“Wait! Stop!” He called, each word becoming more frantic than the last, “Where are you going?”

No answer came.

And just like that, he pushed his way through another door, where Jack could no longer follow.

He turned back to the creature standing down the road. Strangely, it seemed to be the same distance away as it had been before, even though Jack had probably followed Angus about a hundred-or-so metres away. And it couldn’t have followed, could it? The whole world seemed to change whenever it moved. He didn’t miss _that_ , did he? He stared at it for several seconds longer, unsure what else he could do, but feeling his heart racing again. What the hell was going on here?!

It blinked again.

Jack turned around, only this time; the streets were alive. People were coming and going between the buildings that lined the street, and he recognised every single one of them. Like Angus, they all had the same black and white bodies with monstrous eyes, but he couldn’t find it in him to care anymore. He ran right to the crowd, reaching one woman he recognised all too well:

Jane.

Jane.

Jane, somehow, still looked incredible, even despite the strange eyes. But when she turned to him, she cringed and looked around for some exit, as if she was attempting to escape from a dirty feral animal lapping at her feet. But when she tried to leave, he reached out to stop her.

And she turned to dust.

Dust.

Jack looked down at the pile in horror and backed away, bumping into Ellen. She only had a moment to look disgusted by the contact before she vanished, too

No.

No. No. NO!

He ran back through the crowd trying to get someone to stop. Anyone. He just wanted someone to stay with him. He didn’t want to be alone.

“Wait!” Johnathon disappeared. 

“Please!” Michael disappeared.

“Don’t go!” John disappeared.

“Come back!” Georgie disappeared.

“Stop!” Mary disappeared.

“Where are you going!” Annabel disappeared.

“Don’t leave me!” Bert disappeared.

Even his mother was disgusted by him. Repulsed like he was just some hideous monster. But even though he could see how much she hated him; he was beyond caring. He was beyond screaming. He was beyond desperate. But when he reached out to take her hand, even she left him.

By the time they’d all abandoned him, he was surrounded by piles of their dust and their faces seared into his mind. What did he do? Why did they all hate him so much?! He couldn’t understand it. What did he do wrong?!

Through the blinding tears, he found he couldn’t hold himself up on wobbling legs any longer, and he was on the floor before he even knew what was happening. Curled into a ball, he clung to his hat, the only thing he had left that could provide any sort of comfort to him. There was nobody left. He was really, well and truly alone.

His heart split in two and the creature could only watch. It didn’t care about him. It had only wished him harm.

So maybe that was why it was no surprise when the fabric and skin of the thing in front of him, ripped apart and fell away, turning to dust to reveal his father standing before him. He was disgruntled as ever. But looking at Jack in a sobbing heap on the floor, he was truly repulsed.

A look he knew all too well.

He should have been scared. He should have been trying to run. He should have apologised for making him angry before he made him regret it.

But he scoffed at him and walked away before he could even get a word out.

He should’ve been safe, then.

So why was he even more scared now?

“Wait… come back…”

_What the hell is this place?_


	3. Things Rotting

_She stepped away from the door and moved on. She couldn’t help them._

When Georgie came to his senses, it became pretty clear that he wasn’t where he was meant to be. This may have been the nursery, but he had been standing outside only moments ago. It didn’t make sense. And since when was everything black and white?

He crawled out of bed, taking note that he seemed to be the only thing with any colour in the whole room. That and the fact that he’d been in bed, and yet he was already fully dressed. Looking down at himself, Georgie saw he was wearing quite a posh suit with shorts. The whole outfit was grey (even the little tie!) and looked rather more like he was going to a funeral, rather than anything else.

He was about to leave and head downstairs, to search for answers and maybe find Mary, but he was rather quickly interrupted by the sound of footsteps outside his door. Two pairs. His heart thudded, a strange sense of urgency suddenly screaming at him to run and hide. That whoever was coming wasn’t going to be his family. Yet his feet were frozen in place, and not just metaphorically, either. When Georgie looked down, he saw that the carpet fibres themselves seemed to have stretched out from the floor and bound his feet tightly to the floor, and no matter how much he tried, he simply couldn’t break free.

The door creaked open, whoever it was, clearly not being too concerned about speed. Georgie shrank back as much as he could, only to find that the two who came inside, were a pair he knew very well: John and Annabel!

Well, not quite…

Everything was wrong with them. Like the rest of the room, they had no colour, and actually seemed darker than the rest, making it even harder to make out their expressions. But he was fairly certain that there was none. Their faces lay permanently in a blank stare, their cold dead eyes having never been alive in the first place. They were merely holes in their heads with brass buttons attempting to cover them. But as much as he wanted to be horrified by the eyes, he was more concerned by the fact that the twins seemed to be conjoined, stitched together right the way up to the shoulder. Though he wasn’t sure whether to call it a shoulder when there was no arm there between them. With their bodies so close, there was only room for one arm each on the outer sides of their bodies, and for them to have to share the middle leg between them, leaving them with only a grand total of three. Their clothes were a horribly made black and white dress and suit, stitched together to cover each side in the appropriate outfit. It was a strange sight to say the least. He’d heard of this sort of thing before in books, but this was really weird. They weren’t supposed to be like that! So, what happened?

He wasn’t even sure if they were the real John and Annabel. They had all been sucked into this strange world together, but they could have been sent somewhere else. He certainly hoped so. He didn’t like being alone. But if this was really what had happened to his big brother and sister, then he might have actually started crying.

Oh, where was Mary when you need her?!

It was at this moment that the twins decided to stop staring at him, and actually do what they had come to do. They both reached into a pocket that lay right where their clothes merged, taking out something and holding it together as they reached out to pass it to Georgie.

The younger boy wasn’t sure what to make of it. But he waited patiently for them to open their hands. Their decaying skeletal fingers finally uncurled to reveal a small cutting from the branch of, what he assumed, was the cherry trees outside. Strangely, despite having come from the pockets of two black and white people, the branch still held its real colouring. But unfortunately, that didn’t mean he was given a branch of pretty pink flowers. It seemed the branch had been cut a long time ago, as the flowers on it had withered and died. The petals were a rotten brown colour and were so weak that Georgie couldn’t help but wonder how on earth they were still clinging onto the branch.

“Where did you get this?” The twins remained silent at his question, but in unison, raised their arms to point out the window into the street. He almost didn’t want to look. And when he did, Georgie only wished he’d listened to his instincts.

The trees were dead. Long dead. Those once brilliantly pink trees seemed to have had every single branch hacked off, leaving them to wither and die. And strangely, despite being wooden, they seemed to rot similarly to the flowers, their bark wilting like dead petals and falling away with the force of the gentle breeze, leaving behind a layer of seeping, oozing pus that dripped down from an almost fleshy interior. And like the rest of the world around them, they lay in a total monochrome state.

They ruined them.

“Why did you do that? Why did you kill them?” He wasn’t sure why he was so upset by this. There was plenty of other things to be more concerned about. You could always plant some new trees. But maybe it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. He’d had enough. He wanted to go home. He shouldn’t have followed Mary outside like he did. She didn’t even know what had happened. Of course it was a bad idea!

The twins pointed to their chests, where they too had a branch each that they wore like broaches. He did the same, looping it through the top button-hole on his suit. And now that he knew what they were for, he could only wonder why they were wearing them in the first place.

Again, the twins chose to point, rather than speak. And this time, they aimed at the door. They didn’t wait for long this time, however. They held the pose for exactly seven and a half seconds, before lowering their arms and walking to the door. Georgie took this as his que to follow them, although it was really the last thing he wanted to do.

As soon as he stepped outside the nursery, he was overwhelmed by an unusual smell. It was foreboding and foul, filling his nostrils like noxious gas. He’d heard plenty of stories from the Great War about the gas, and briefly wondered if whatever this stuff was, was enough to kill him. It was as if the rotting cherry trees outside had been dragged inside. But from his place halfway down the stairs, he could just about see them still outside through the living room window.

The house itself came to mind when he wondered what else could be rotting. The peeling wallpaper and damp patches were enough to tell him that things had really gone downhill. Windows and picture frames lay cracked and shattered, mould crept up the walls, and every now and then, he would notice an unusual stain that grossed him out enough that he would dodge any in his path. But the worst part about it all, was how the whole house was just so empty.

It wasn’t as if anything was physically missing, yet he felt like there was nothing in any of the rooms. There was certainly no soul, that was for sure. But the rooms all seemed the slightest bit bigger. Not enough to be particularly noticeable, but enough that the furniture looked more spread out and like the room wasn’t adequately filled. He also noted that everything seemed to be a few inches to the left. Again, it wasn’t a huge change, but it was enough to throw him off; as he walked on autopilot, deep in his thoughts, he found himself constantly bumping into things and tripping over others. Despite the decrepit state of the building, it was extremely tidy, to the point it didn’t even looked like it had been lived in, and with the fires all lying dark and not a single light in the house switched on, it seemed lifelessly cold aswell. He certainly didn’t like this. Not one bit. He couldn’t even tell whether it was too dark or not. It seemed to be that time of day, just before the sun sets and gives a final lightshow in the sky, where the whole world is not quite dark enough to warrant any lights, but not light enough to compete with the midday sun. It was that frustrating inbetween part when the whole world seemed to have died, and you were constantly wondering when the shadows had grown large enough for it to be worth doing anything about. He hated it. He hated every second of it.

And yet, despite this, it could get worse. For John and Annabel didn’t stop on the ground floor. They took Georgie down the hallway, towards the kitchen, and then suddenly turned off to the cellar door. Georgie hadn’t been down there very often. The boiler was down there, and he’d always been freaked out by the strange noises the old thing made. Not to mention, it was hideously dark down there. And not because of a lack of lights. There was a light. But it was a weak glow from a single bulb dangling from the middle of the ceiling, that swung nauseatingly when you tried to switch it on. It flickered and clicked, if it even turned on at all, and barely had enough light to fight off the darkness in the large drafty cellar, leaving the shadows in the corner to stalk you as they pleased. Yes, he certainly hated it down there. But it looked like he had no choice. So, he followed, coming closer and closer to the source of the smell.

The twins led him down, dragging him to the very centre of the space. Oddly, as he had come down the stairs into the room, it had looked to be several times wider and deeper than it had ever done before, and yet once he stood in the middle, it seemed _smaller_ than ever. But as he stood in the darkness, he quickly realised why that was. All around him, forming an impenetrable wall, was just about everyone he’d ever known: every family member, every friend, every acquaintance, new and old, past, and present, every single one of them conjoined together like the twins, in a mass of bodies, all wearing their own dead branch. He could even see what looked like his mother standing in the middle of the ring. But he couldn’t quite make out what lay at her feet.

He turned to the twins, looking for instructions. They stood only a few paces behind him, joining the wall of people. And in unison with everyone else in the room, they looked up to the dangling lightbulb above them. Right above whatever was on the floor. Whatever rotting thing had produced this vile odour. And they wanted him to see.

_Turn the light on._

He reached up, gingerly taking hold of the cord, and pulling. It took a moment. It always does. It flickered. It clicked. It buzzed. And after several moments when Georgie thought this might be one of the occasions it decided not to work, the bulb lit up with a brighter glow than he’d ever seen come from it before.

And he really wished it didn’t.

“Father…?”

He looked just like the cherry blossoms. He must have been down there for a while.

As his world had just shattered into a million pieces, he fell to the floor, failing to fight down the anguished wail that ripped its way out of his lungs. His heart stuttered as he tried to take even the smallest gasps of air in between his distressed screams. This couldn’t be happening! This couldn’t be happening! This couldn’t be happening! He clung to the cold body, no longer caring about the state it was in. The was his actual father. His FATHER! How did this happen?!

The horde surrounding them seemed to close in.

Further.

And further.

And further.

And further.

He wanted to scream and shout and tell them to go away, but he physically couldn’t form the words anymore. And he didn’t care enough to try. He didn’t want dad to die. And if he was gone, then Georgie would have to go too. He couldn’t do this. Not again!

Not again!

“Please, Dad! Come back…”

But the darkness wasn’t listening to him. He was buried before he knew what was going on.

_“No,” she gasped, “this isn’t real!”_


	4. It’s All Falling Apart

_“Annabel? Is that you? Don’t worry, I’m coming!”_

Did she just hear that? It sounded like a voice. Annabel whipped around, searching for the source, but it didn’t seem like there was one.

“Mary Poppins, what was that?” She turned back to Mary, however, much to her surprise, she was gone. And so was John. And so was Georgie. In fact, even the colours were. It was a rather strange, she was still standing on Cherry Tree Lane, outside her home, yet the whole world seemed to have drained of colour, leaving a monochrome husk of what she used to know. She couldn’t really say that she remembered what happened to the colours, or pinpoint the exact moment they disappeared, but it had to have changed within the last few seconds because she was certain they were still there when she heard that voice.

Turning back to the house, she realised she wasn’t completely alone on the street: two men were standing at either side of the front door of the house, almost as if they were guarding it. She couldn’t make out their faces at first, but as she approached, she realised it was the lawyers that had been working for Wilkins: Hamilton Gooding, and Templeton Frye. But not quite. She was shocked that they seemed to have buttons eyes poorly covering wholes in their face, and emerging from their long coats, instead of legs, seemed to be the tails of snakes. She would’ve liked to have gotten closer, where she would’ve seen that these snake men were shedding so much that their skin was left bloody and raw, but she barely had her foot on the first step to the door before the two lunged forward with a hiss.

Annabel staggered backwards, confused as to what was going on, and, as if they could read her mind, the lawyers pointed behind them in unison to a piece of paper that had been pinned to the door. They never took their eyes off of her, reading her features to see if she understood. But the print was too small to see at that distance, so she looked to the lawyers for permission to come closer.

“Its just too hard to read from here.” She assured, as she took cautious steps towards them. The two leaned back slightly, clearing enough of a path for her to stand by the door, which was only just wide enough to fit through. For some reason, they wouldn’t give her anymore space, and so once she got passed, she felt as if they were crowing over her, blocking out what little light there was, making it harder to read the notice. But the words were too big not to notice. And too harsh to ignore.

_“This isn’t your house anymore, go away!”_

Her heart sank. What were they doing? Of course this was still her home. They got the certificate and paid the debt. They couldn’t just take it, could they? Were the shares rejected because of the state of the certificate. Or was this world a place where they never found the certificate in the first place?

The idea was rather silly really, considering how harshly they’d reacted to her merely approaching. Getting in was obviously going to cause more of a ruckus. But if she could just get the kite, maybe she could fix it. She knew exactly where it was: upstairs under Georgie’s bed. She just had to be quick to get it.

She pretended to be shocked, as if, at any moment, she was going to run away crying. The lawyers seemed to believe her, already moving back to avoid getting shoved by her. But once she’d waited as long as she could, and they’d moved as far as they ever would, she yanked to door handle, wrenching it open and racing inside before they even had the sense to stop her.

However, while Annabel thought she could be brave, she certainly wasn’t brave enough to see what was inside.

Nothing.

Literally, nothing.

When she opened the door, she was met with a black void that she walked through as if it was any normal room. Yet there was no floor, no walls, and it seemed to go on forever. The usual warmth that circulated from the fireplaces all over the building was gone, leaving behind an icy cold that she could quite describe. It wasn’t like a snowstorm was cold, it felt like she’d been standing barefoot on the kitchen tiles all day. But instead of freezing her feet, it had taken over her whole body. And she couldn’t even feel the surface of the house. If she reached out, no matter where she did, there was nothing. Even around the door where the walls really should have been, there was nothing. They’d really taken the house. There was nothing left. Not even the space it occupied. And that was all she was able to think before the lawyers slithered in behind her, grabbing her arms and dragging her back out, hissing and growling at her the whole time.

But they didn’t speak.

She was thrown out of the house, falling down, and hitting each stone step along the way, and yet when she reached the bottom, there wasn’t a single scratch on her skin, or bump on her head. But somehow, the way the lawyers looked at her made it feel like they’d plucked her heart right from her chest and stomped it into the ground. She got the message. She wasn’t welcome here.

Reluctantly, she turned around and walked back out to the pavement, looking up to the streetlight that brought them here. Somehow, despite the fact it should have had no panels and be surrounded by broken glass, in this world, it stood dark, pristine and in full working order. This world was as different as it could possibly be, and when she looked across the street, it was the first time she really wanted to go back home.

There, slumped against the park gate, was her family: her father, John, Georgie, and Ellen, all lying there starved and half dead. Their faces were sunken and gaunt, with the same button eyes as the lawyers, only even less neat and a lot more bloody. It looked like they’d tried to fight, their eyes were badly cut up where the needle had tried to go in before being jolted. And the wounds certainly hadn’t healed yet, leaving their faces a bloody mess. The sickening smell that something was rotting seemed to emanate from their wheezing bodies, and for a moment, she wondered if they were even still alive.

Scrambling over to them, she knelt by their side. They needed help and she had to do it. Those lawyers had the perfect view and yet still wouldn’t help them. She refused to believe that the world was devoid of all other life. There had to have been someone to walk by, or a neighbour looking out the window. Someone! Anyone! They needed help and yet everyone was gone.

It had to be her.

Trying to slow her mind enough to think was a challenge, and she had to give up at calming her thundering heart. But eventually she remembered the stall in the park that was always set up in the warmer months. And considering that the cherry blossoms were in bloom- although they were grey- it was enough to tell her that it was spring in this world. So it must be there.

Racing away, she delved into the park, finding the bushes had grown wild, and almost seemed to be reaching out to grab her. But she paid no mind to it, and dashed to the stall. Considering how empty the world was, she doubted that Mr Holbrook would be there, but so long as the place was stocked. Mr Holbrook always took advantage of the good weather, knowing the park would be busy, he would go down and set up a table at one of the benches and sell various snacks and juice for the children, knowing they’d have worked up an appetite from playing all day. If she could just get there and grab something, she could feed her family, and then they wouldn’t look so badly starved anymore.

She could fix this. She could fix this. Of course she could. She always fixed everything. She’d been looking after them ever since mother died. She could do this.

She found the stall just where it was meant to be, and while it was unmanned, it was extremely well stocked. Unusually so. But she tried to ignore that and grabbed several sandwiches, not really bothering to check what was in them, and dashed back to the street, tripping over the wild bushes as she went. She practically threw herself down as she reached them, taking each of their hands and putting a sandwich in them.

“Here, eat this, you’ll feel better.” She said, fighting to keep her voice steady. But as they began to raise their arms, the food seemed to disintegrate, turning to black dust and slipping between their fingers. She could hardly believe her eyes. How did that happen? Why?! But she couldn’t think about it for too long. She had to get more. And if it disintegrated after a certain time away from the table, then she was just going to have to be quicker, because she certainly couldn’t drag them to it.

She ran back, never noticing how the bushes seemed to have grown several inches bigger. As soon as she reached the table, she grabbed some more sandwiches and juice, counting down from three before she took them, to prepare herself to spin and run faster than ever. She pushed herself on, she had to go faster and further. There was no other way. But even though she took half the time to reach the gate, by the time she saw her family, the food had already fallen apart.

“No! Why can’t you just stay together for a bit longer?!” With a desperate huff, she went back to the table, trying so hard not to panic. But this time, the food disintegrated as soon as she picked it up. And when she tried again, it fell apart at a single touch.

“Nonononono! Please, just- just-” She didn’t know what she wanted anymore. The hopelessness of her situation was starting to settle in, but she forced herself to let her stubbornness take over instead. She had to fix this. She had to.

Fighting back tears, she settled on the first thing she could think of: if she couldn’t take things from the table, then shed take the table to them. It was quite large and unnaturally heavy for what appeared to only be a portable folding table. Yet, somehow, it seemed almost like somebody had attached blocks of cement to the legs. She yanked with all her strength, the thing barely moving. It was going to be exhausting to move it. It would take forever. But it didn’t matter. She had to fix this. Nobody else could. It was all up to her.

In her frenzy, she didn’t even notice the shadow that formed over the bench. The shadow of a person. But it wasn’t Mr Holbrook. It may have been the shape of a person, but this thing wasn’t even human. The shadow seemed to simply grow from the bench, forming into an inky black body that seemed to drip and splatter as it moved. It had no eyes. No mouth. No nothing. Just a plain body that was as dark as her hollowed home. And it wasn’t too happy to see her stealing.

When Annabel looked up and saw the horrifying beast, she let out a scream and took off, running for the exit to the park. There was no way she was going to stop and wait to see what that thing would do to her. Her heart pounded as she reached the bushes, only to find that in all the time she’d ignored them, they had grown into a wall, blocking her path. But she couldn’t stop, a quick look behind her confirmed her suspicions: it was following her. Faced with no other option, she carried on, pushing her way through the bushes, no longer caring it the bony branches scratched or cut her. Right now, she just needed to get away. And maybe the bushes knew that, because it was right when she had that thought that they grabbed her. Curling around her waist and holding her back.

She was completely stuck. Stuck, even though she could see her family only metres away, slowly turning to dust.

“NO! NO! LET GO! I HAVE TO HELP THEM! PLEASE!” She sobbed, squirming in its grip.

“THEY’RE DYING! I CAN HELP THEM! PLEASE JUST LET ME!” But of course, it didn’t listen. And when she turned around, she could see the figure approaching, passing through the wall of vegetation like a ghost through a wall. She turned back, fighting the urge to vomit as she saw the last of her family waste away. They were dead.

At least she’d get to be with them soon. It was still coming closer to her, ready to strike. She failed. And now she was going to pay the price.

_“I’m coming for you!”_


	5. Papers

When John woke up, he hadn’t a clue where he was. And I say ‘woke up’ because he could’ve sworn that there was a lapse in consciousness along the way. How else would he have moved away like this? One minute, he was standing outside his home, and the next, he was sitting in some sort of office. Though as he surveyed the area, he quickly decided that this world had to be the dream, instead. It was just too weird.

The room itself seemed to stretch into infinity, with not a single wall in sight, jus endless rows of desks with people working in complete silence. The whole world was devoid of colours, and he couldn’t seem to hear a single other thing aside from the millions of pencils scratching down notes onto giant stacks of paper. He wasn’t sure what they were doing, but he didn’t bother working it out, as he was quickly distracted by his own state. He was wearing an office suit that was absolutely enormous on him. Anyone would think he had taken his own Father’s work clothes and put them on. The crisp, white button button-up was partnered with freshly ironed dress pants, a tie, brown waistcoat, suspenders, and even a black blazer. The whole look would have been pretty impressive if it had been made for a child. Unfortunately, the size meant that John looked rather comical above anything else. But the bowler cap on his head seemed to fit. So, at least he had that.

He couldn’t help the slight grin that spread over his face as he looked around, wondering if any of the other workers would notice. But he quickly noticed that they were all children, too. Strangely, despite the fact that they all dressed like adults, the clothes seemed to actually fit them, leaving John as the odd one out. But he was quite glad he wasn’t like them, as the other children all seemed to have buttons sewn in place of their eyes.

It was certainly a strange dream, but convinced he wouldn’t let it become a nightmare, he tried to have some fun with it, afterall, he _was_ sitting in a swivel chair. Curling up into a ball, he pulled his feet onto the chair to avoid kicking anything and disturbing anyone, then reached out to the desk before pushing himself off. He giggled madly the whole time, picking up speed as he ignored how dizzy it was making him. He always loved to do this at home, watching the colours blur and blend into general shapes that stretched and warped in his vision as he passed. The way the speed forced him back against the chair, knowing that he would go flying if it wasn’t for the back and arm rests. The thrill was always there, no matter how old he was. And he was fairly certain it would stay like that long into the future, too.

Unfortunately, being the only one not working meant that he stood out a mile in the room, and he was soon approached. John could hardly tell at first. It was only when the figure came closer, seemingly appearing out of thin air, that john noticed the blending colours in his vision had changed, and he slowed down, eyes still rolling around in his head for a moment until they finally landed on the figure before him: his Father?

It couldn’t be him, surely? This man certainly looked like him, but he was also very different. For one, he was much older, being the only adult that he could see in the room. And the moustache was much larger, to the point where it pretty much covered his entire mouth. He wore the neatest suit he’d ever seen; even better than the sort that the most senior bankers would wear. The aged lines on his face were only made more prominent by the frown that lay there, and while he did have button eyes and a monochrome body, like everyone else, John was convinced that his whole facial structure was different, and that _that_ was why he looked so strange. But John put it down to the dream. You’re always convinced that a person you meet is someone you know, but when you think about it, the real version looks completely different, if the real person even exists in the first place.

So, despite his “Father’s” clear frustration with him, John’s grin never left his face. The older man eyed his desk, noting the distinct lack of… well… everything. The desk was completely void of papers, or stationary, or anything that one would need to get any actual work done. He wasn’t too pleased by this, and reached into the inside pocket of the left side of his blazer to pull out an entire pot of pencils, that John was certain couldn’t have fit in there without causing the whole thing to bulge out. And a moment later he proved that he was working on dream logic as he reached into the right inside pocket and proceeded to pull out a stack of A4 paper that was bigger than him. He proceeded to drop it onto the desk, tap his finger against it twice, before pointing to his watch, before walking.

He certainly got the message: do this work before time runs out. The only issue being that he didn’t know what time it was. His “Father” never said and also never said how long he had to go. And when John looked down to his own watch and was amiss to find that there were no hands on the face, anymore.

Sure, just another dream. Nothing to be scared of.

Settling down again, John grabbed the first piece of paper, marked one out of twenty-thousand. His heart nearly stopped at the sight. ‘Seriously?’, he thought, ‘He had to get through all this?’ He signed and tried to read the sheet, but found it was full of, what he could only describe as, nonsense. The page started with big technical words, the kind people use to sound smart, even though the word isn’t actually necessary to use, like saying ‘pusillanimous’, when ‘cowardly’ means the same thing. But the page got weirder as it started using mathematical diagrams and equations that had little meaning to him, but probably were helpful to an engineer. The diagrams showed all sorts of complicated inventions and machines that didn’t seem to link together in any way that John could see, and there were almost no numbers on the page, as the equations were made purely of Greek letters. But as he got further down again, the fancy words and fancy maths were topped as pages and pages of information seemed to have been printed on top of each other the fit in the bottom third of the paper. The overlap of ink was so extreme, that the page actually felt wet, with the very end dripping as it had actually just been dipped into a pot of ink.

Gingerly, so not to rip the soaking papers, he tried to look through a few of the others in the stack, only to find they were all direct copies of each other. He couldn’t understand what he was actually supposed to be doing, and found himself staring blankly at the pages for several moments, before turning to the person on his right side to ask. And it just so happened that that person was Annabel.

She looked very odd at her desk. She wore a neat blouse tucked into a knee length skirt and a frilly bow. Round classes were perched in front of her button eyes and her hair seemed to be slightly longer, to allow it to be curled into the sort of updo a middle-aged woman would wear, rather than a twelve-year-old girl. She still looked her usual friendly self, if not a little more serious-looking as she was so engrossed in her work. So, he didn’t really hesitate to ask her,

“Annabel.”

She froze. In fact, everyone in the room froze. There was a moment before everyone suddenly sat up straight in unison, and turned to John from wherever they were in the office. Then, all in unison and lasting for exactly five seconds, the hoards of children shushed him. He looked between the Annabel and the general crowd. They all stared at him for a moment longer, before turning back to their desks and continuing with whatever they were doing.

Confused, John tried to look over to Annabel’s page to see what she was up to, so he could try to copy, only to find that her papers were all blank, and despite clearly writing on them with her pencil, nothing appeared. And yet she carried on as if everything was perfectly normal and like she actually could see what she’s written on the pages. Her stack was half complete, as she kept taking new ones from her right and adding them to the left pile when she was done. The pile was an impressive sight, so John decided he should probably follow suit until this weird dream finished.

Admittedly, this certainly was the strangest dream he’d ever had before. He wasn’t sure why he was supposed to be in an office pretending to be an adult, but he wasn’t going to question it. It was bizarre, but it wasn’t scary. And it all felt so real, that it would make for a pretty good story when he woke up. Well, if he could remember it.

It was at this point that he noticed he’d started working without even realising it. And as soon as he tried to make a conscious effort to continue, he couldn’t. It was only when he properly realised what he’d been doing, that he wondered if he really should carry on. For on the page, he had drawn a horned figure that simply had a scribble for a face. He’d covered the rest of the page in other marks, to the point where he’d almost filled the entire page in this nonsense. And strangely, despite only using a HB pencil, the drawing was actually darker than the ink, making it perfectly distinguishable when it really shouldn’t have been. He tried to pull away from the page but only found that his arm had actually fused to the table. It seemed to have melted and mixed with the thick wooden surface beneath him and then froze again in its new position. And no matter how hard he tried, he simply couldn’t move it.

Suddenly, without his input, his free arm moved to take the completed drawing and start a pile at his left for finished sheets, before reaching to the stack to take a second piece to start on. His trapped arm immediately got to work, rapidly filling in the sheet to complete it even sooner than the first, before doing another and another, faster and faster each time. The constant strain was starting to hurt, but no matter how hard he tried, John physically couldn’t stop himself, even when he turned away from the desk.

The drawings got darker and darker as his head filled with noise. Noises to distract himself from what was happening: a bouncing ball, laughter, birds chirping in the trees, playing games with his siblings. But the office seemed to be doing everything in its power to counter this, as the constant scratching of their pencils somehow increased in volume, until it was a deafening orchestra making it impossible to even hear his own thoughts.

He tried to squirm away, wheeling back on his chair, only to find he couldn’t move either of his arms from the desk. He pulled and pulled, but nothing worked, and as he realised that he was really trapped, his heart started racing for the first time that day. This really was a nightmare.

The other workers quickly grew tired of listening to his struggle and turned to shush him again, continuing without pause and the room started to grow darker. And darker. And darker again. The drawings, however, started to get even easier to see. They stood out from the rest of the page, even when the room became as dark as it, and John had no idea how it was possible to see anymore. The creature he had been drawing became more refined with each piece, and before he knew it, John could see a snout, an unnaturally wide mouth filled to the brim with an ungodly amount of jagged razor-sharp teeth, and a single eye that lay closed in the centre of its head. He needed to stop. If he didn’t, he could swear the image was going to come to life. It was so realistic now that he couldn’t even imagine how on earth it could be more refined.

And then the room fell silent, the thrumming of his own heart being the only thing that John could hear anymore. There was nothing for several long seconds. The pause seemed to stretch into infinity. His arms had ceased in their ministrations, John noting that they had somehow gotten through the whole pile in only a minute or so. He didn’t dare take his eyes off the final piece of paper before him. The drawing was about as realistic as it could get. And yet, it got worse. The thing opened its eye.

And it was staring right at him.

The eye was unnaturally realistic now, the rest of the drawing looking like a crude scribble in comparison. The eye seemed so bright in the darkness, and held the only colour in the room, keeping John’s attention held in its control: a pair of red pupils, conjoined in the eye.

It blinked.

John’s heart leapt to his throat, as he suddenly couldn’t breathe. Desperately trying to pull away, he looked around the room, only to find it had been consumed by the darkness, leaving behind only an endless void. He couldn’t hear their pencils, or their shushing from before. Now, he was all alone with this thing, and he simply couldn’t bear to breathe anymore. He wanted to scream. He wanted to cry. He wanted to go home. He wanted his family. But that wasn’t an option for him anymore.

The monster wanted him.

It reached out of the page before the boy knew what was happening. He kicked and thrashed, sobbing out loud. But nobody came. Nobody was coming. It could do whatever it wanted with him now.

He didn’t have a choice.

_I’m sorry._


	6. What’s Behind Closed Doors?

Mary Poppins was a smart woman, in more ways than one. She knew a lot of things about a lot of places and people. But she was also a smartly dressed woman, who was completely composed in any situation.

Until today.

For the first time in many years, Mary was clueless. She’d never come across anything like this before. Since when did streetlamps make people disappear with gold dust? And of course, through all this madness, her hair was probably a mess. She was hardly going to walk around in such a state. She was a professional woman, for goodness sake, and it didn’t matter that she was in a situation she didn’t understand; she was going to keep her standards up.

That’s why she wasn’t particularly bothered by the room she was in, at first. Once she came back to consciousness (though she wasn’t sure she’d been unconscious in the first place), she was quick to check her reflection in a rather convenient mirror hanging on the wall just behind her. It was on a door, strangely, but it did the job. And thankfully, she wasn’t in too bad of a state. Nothing that a few of her spare hairpins couldn’t fix. And once she was looking less frazzled, she took a moment to take in her surroundings.

She realised that she was actually standing at the end of a narrow corridor, and aside for someone having hung a mirror on a door and the hallway itself only being as wide as that door, everything looked reasonably normal, if a little dated. The decorations seemed to be that of an early Victorian manor house rather than the more modern styles she was used to seeing these days. It actually reminded her of… nevermind that. But it was certainly a bizarre thing to see. She assumed that the world would have had some relation to the lamp or the dust from back on the street. Perhaps a golden desert? Or a land of stars? A hallway in an old house hardly seemed like a logical thing to find. But then again, when had magic ever been logical?

The patterned wallpaper swirled in shades or red, brown, gold and orange, as the design seemed to be moving slightly; forming and reforming into designs that had been changed so slightly that most wouldn’t have noticed without the scrutinising observation formed from Mary’s suspicion of the building in general. There were no paintings hung up, but there were plenty of candelabra wall sconces that were fixed inbetween each door along the hallway. And there were a lot of doors. And despite the floor, ceiling and skirting boards all being made from a deep brown mahogany with the lights on the wall in gold, the doors were black and fixed with silver handles. It was certainly a rather unusual choice of décor, but the doors all matched each other, at least, even though they didn’t match the rest of the hallway. So, she resigned herself to that fact and went about her business. Well, she didn’t have any particular business in mind, but as she looked around and finally realised that she was alone after being certain she had been with Jack and the children only moments before, she decided that her business was to find them. So, searching the rooms was probably a good start.

Stepping through the silence, her heels quietly clicked along the floor until she reached the first door. She reached for the handle, and couldn’t help but notice that what she had thought was a silver door handle, didn’t seem to reflect anything in colour. She could see her coat and hand as she reached out, yet everything seemed to be in shades of grey.

She opened the door… what was this place?

Inside the room seemed to be a black and white street. And although she couldn’t imagine why it was so monochrome, she’d seen stranger things, in that regard. But it wasn’t long before she noticed something that held her attention a lot more.

There was a voice. A gasping, shouting, crying voice.

It was several seconds later that she saw who it belonged to: Jack. He was stumbling backwards away from something. But when Mary followed his gaze, she saw nothing. She watched as he fell to the floor, curling up in a heap as he sobbed, and yet, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t go to him. Some kind of force had taken hold of her, seizing her chest in terror, freezing her in place. She wanted to do something. She wanted to speak. She wanted to run right in there to drag Jack from the strange world and assure him that everything was alright. But she couldn’t. Nothing should have been able to stop her, but everything in this world was different to what she knew.

As she watched, from somewhere in the distance, a smoky black tendril bellowed across the street to him. She couldn’t see where it came from exactly, and there was certainly no fire to have created it, but the smoke seemed to be alive and was heading right for him. But despite Jack having seen something terrible already, he didn’t seem to notice this. He didn’t even flinch as the smoke approached, wrapping around his neck, billowing away to the point she could no longer see his face.

“What on earth is this place?” She was sure there was nobody who would hear, but that didn’t stop her from asking. And as she waited for a moment in the silence, her eyes never leaving Jack, her answer came in the form of a strangely deep voice. A voice she swore she could recognise.

“Your mistakes.”

“Excuse me?” This time, however, there was no answer. Strange. That voice seemed to set off something inside her, that she definitely didn’t like. As if it was a part of some kind of repressed memory, though she couldn’t think what voice would be so hard to remember, yet important enough to be in this strange world with her. Was he responsible for this? Or was he just part of someone else’s big scheme?

The force holding her finally let up, but it shut the door before Mary had the chance to slip through. She pursed her lips in thought, finally deciding that if that really was Jack, she would have to save him later, when she knew what was going on. So instead of letting this place get to her, she moved on.

Coming to the second door, she found it was no different than the first, so she opened it without hesitation. Inside, it appeared to be some kind of cellar. The cellar under number 17 if she wasn’t mistaken. And this time, in the centre of the room, hunched over and sobbing, was Georgie. Once more, she couldn’t see anything else inside to indicate what was wrong, but the smoky tendril was here too, having grabbed hold of the young boy’s wrist, enveloping his whole arm in a black smog.

The voice came again.

“This is your fault.”

“No. it isn’t. You brought them here.” She stepped away from the door and moved on. She couldn’t help them. And she wouldn’t let this voice pretend she could.

“But their fears are your fault. You failed to help them in time. Now they’ll never be the same.”

“No,” she gasped, “this isn’t real.” The voice merely laughed, but it did not return.

This wasn’t her fault. She may have been responsible for those in her care, but she was not responsible for this kidnapping and whatever had been done to them. She wouldn’t allow the voice to get into her head like that. This wasn’t her fault.

The third door held Annabel inside. At least, it looked like Annabel. She was standing tangled in thick vines at the entrance of the park, screaming and crying as the smoky tendrils behind her took hold of her waist. With so many branches obscuring the view, it was hard to tell if it really was her. But Mary quickly realised that, whatever the case, she was struggling to breathe in its clutches.

A wave of panic washed over her.

“Annabel!” she cried, “Is that you? Don’t worry, I’m coming!” She couldn’t let a child get hurt on her watch, but as she tried to rush in, the door slammed shut, blocking the way. “I’m coming for you!” She desperately tried to wrench the door open, but found she couldn’t even push the handle down. She couldn’t just leave her there. She was in actual danger, for goodness sake!

She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t scared. She’d never lost a child like this, and she couldn’t bear the thought of it. Her heart hammered against her ribs until her chest was sore and she could no longer breathe. She couldn’t let this happen, and that damned voice was laughing at her.

“I don’t know why you care now. She feels that way because of you.”

“That’s not possible.” She retorted, finally giving up on the door. She was starting to feel like this wasn’t even real, but rather showing her untruths just to upset her. And it was working. She moved to the next door.

This time it was John in an infinitely large, empty office, being dragged into a drawing on a piece of paper by some unseen horror, only allowing a smoky black tendril to be visible as it hauled him through by the leg. He thrashed and struggled, but Mary physically couldn’t enter the room. There was nothing she could do to save him as she watched him be devoured before her very eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

“Are you sure?” the voice quipped, “You’ve been doing this for years.”

“What do you mean?” She snapped, moving through to the next door. She’d already well and truly had enough of his vague responses to everything. What on earth was going on?!

“You always arrive too late to make a difference. You always choose to help after the damage has been done and they’re left with crippling fears that can’t be rectified with a week of your company.” Her heart stopped as she moved to the next rooms and saw more children she’d had in her care throughout the years.

“You were too late for Jack. And now he’s afraid of being abandoned again.”

Jane, Michael, Oscar, and Tom.

“You were too late for Georgie. And now he’s terrified that his father will die.”

Betsey, Julie, and sweet little Albert.

“You were too late for Annabel. And now she’s terrified she can’t help her family.”

Peter, Karim, Joseph, and Rico.

“You were too late for John. And now he’s afraid he can never be a child again.”

Lola, Charlie, David, and Sura.

“You were too late for them all. You didn’t prevent any damage, but helped them cover up what had already been done. You’ve never been able to fix them. You never will.”

Mary didn’t even notice that she’d already come to the end of the corridor. She saw hundreds of children and adults alike. Every one of them having been traumatised long before she had ever come to help them. She only ever went to the most important cases, and in doing so, was essentially waiting for children be ruined enough for them to be worth her time. She had to, though! She couldn’t help everyone on the planet! She was only one woman. But as she looked back at the doors and the fears of those people that lay inside, she realised that he was right. She should have come sooner. She really couldn’t help them. If she hadn’t waited a year after Kate, or even arrived when she was still alive, she could’ve made a difference. If she arrived when Jack still had his parents, she could’ve made a difference. But they hadn’t been her priority, and she’d left everything until it got bad enough for them to climb to the top of her list. Every case she came across had once been at the bottom of her priorities for so long, until everything suddenly got worse for them. But surely, she helped somewhat, right?

“You barely made a difference to them. You didn’t save them.” His laughter echoed all around her for far too long before he trailed off with a dark tone.

“But is that really any surprise?” He asked, “You couldn’t save her either.” Mary’s heart stuttered as she reached for the final door. Her blood running ice cold at his words.

“Don’t you dare.”

“Why don’t you come in and take a look?”


	7. The Other Side Of The Mirror

She didn’t want to see what was inside, but it was fairly obvious that she had no choice. Her heart thundering, she found that her hand gripped the doorknob with thrice as much force as was necessary. But the fear had taken over. She’d never admit it. She never got scared like this. But after everything that had happened so far, she had a good idea of what would be on the other side of the door. And that was a good enough reason for even someone like her to be afraid.

Creaking open, the door didn’t reveal anything too unusual, as the hallway that she was already in, seemed to continue for a little way. This time, however, there were no adjoining rooms to distract her with the horrors inside. The hallway jus continued on, getting thinner as it went, until it opened up to the landing of a rather grand old house. The landing was open up to the floor below, with a grand staircase leading down to it. Elegant paintings of countless past generations lined the walls, above side tables that were adorned with priceless family heirlooms. There were several rooms she could have explored, but she already knew which one she was meant to go to. Afterall, it was the only door that was open.

The heavy black door was only open a crack, with a sliver of light, much brighter than the dimly lit hallway, shining through to cross her body and draw attention to the changes that had been made to her. Had she been able to find a mirror, she would have seen she looked much younger, but Mary certainly did catch on to the fact that she appeared to be much closer to the floor than she had before. Her body no longer held the maturity of a woman, and she wore a much more childish pink dress. Her hair lay in curls in a rather old fashioned updo at the sides of her head, and she had been stripped of her hat and umbrella. This was hardly the sort of outfit she thought was appropriate for what was happening, but when she was just a little girl, she remembered wearing the very outfit.

As she approached the door, she could hear two voices inside,

“Will you just behave for once in your life?!” A gruff, male voice huffed.

“NOT UNTIL YOU LEAVE ME ALONE!” The second was clearly a young girl, not more than a child as her voice hadn’t quite yet matured. And the tell-tail stubbornness was enough to tell her that it was her sister. Mary had always aspired to be like her: ever brave even when she knew what was coming.

“Get that dress off right now, or else!” The words alone were enough to make her flinch. She didn’t want to see this again. She knew very well what her father did to her, afterall, he did it to them both. And she didn’t need to see that ever again. But for the first time in a little while, that force that had frozen her at the doors returned, and this time, it urged her forwards. She couldn’t stop herself from reaching forward and opening the door to her sister’s bedroom.

It was like the whole world had been put on pause just for her.

Her father stood, towering over everyone, in the middle of the bedroom, his hair greying much earlier than she remembered. But his face was twice as angry. It had all been such a blur, that she’d almost forgotten what he looked like, as if she’d managed to block it out of her mind for all these years. His suit was just as neat as she always remembered as he seemed to cast a shadow across the whole room. Had she not thought to look, Mary may have even missed her sister, standing just past their father. And her expression was entirely new. She didn’t remember seeing her face there. She had only ever thought about what she had heard, because if she thought about what she saw, she may very well have made herself sick. But… wow. Her sister looked braver than she had ever seen before. Gritted teeth and not a single drop of fear in her eyes. At least not yet. She had a hold of father’s wrist where he’d grabbed her dress in a tight fist. She could see how her nails dug into his skin, just hard enough to break the skin and begin to draw blood. And had she not already known how this would end, she may have even thought she stood a chance.

But history couldn’t change now. It was much too late for that.

And it was true: she never saved her.

Deciding she had had plenty of time to watch before the chaos unfolded, the world finally resumed its actions, and without noticing her, her father bellowed,

“I mean it! I’ll kill you!”

“NO!” She squirmed in his grip. She knew what would happen if she disobeyed. Of course she did. Maybe that was why she did it in the first place. It was the easiest way out of this hell. But it was about to get worse.

Everything slowed again for a moment, though not entirely, and in that moment, Mary saw, standing in his body, phased through it, the same dark monster that had tormented the children. He turned back to Mary, causing his head to seem to phase right out of her father’s, to look her in the eye and give a devilish faceless smirk. And with a slithering black tendril, it reached out to her sister, slithering around her waist. And as soon as it did, she changed.

Mary was no longer looking at her sister. It was Annabel.

The movement was sudden, but no less intense, as the creature- her father- whatever this monster was- picked up Annabel by the front of her dress, holding her up to the light for a moment, before slinging her to the ground behind him with as much force as she could manage. Annabel let out a scream of pain, as she was pulled back, thrashing the whole time. But the monster’s grip only tightened further, causing her to gasp as she tried in vain to catch her breath. He flipped her onto her back, lifting her only to slam her back down against the floor. She grabbed his arm and tried to scratch and bite, but he pulled away and let go of her waist, grabbing her by the wrists. And as soon as he did, she turned into Georgie. Picking the young boy up, he pulled his arms apart until there came an audible pop from his shoulders. Georgie howled in unspeakable agony as he choked out a flurry of tears, but it did nothing to dissuade the onslaught. He was shaken roughly, before changing his grip to hold him by the ankles instead, letting Georgie fall as he transformed into John, who cracked his head on the floor. The blood pooled around his head as the beast above him hailed down thunderous blows all over his body, until the poor boy hadn’t even the energy to cry out in pain. As the blood soaked his clothes, and the beast hurled threats and insults too vile for the pure hearted to understand, he was lifted by the throat and slammed against the wall, cutting his head open further as Jack let out a cry. Kicking frantically, the leerie fought for breath as the barbarian’s grip on his through tightened hard enough that just the slightest flick of the wrist could snap it entirely. Wide eyes and desperate cawing did nothing to save his breath, and as the life began to fade, Jack struggling ceased, finally being dropped when he had fallen still.

His body was left in a heap against the wall, where he slowly changed back to Mary’s sister, in the form that she remembered the best. And as the monster turned to her, all around him appeared the bodies of John, Jack, Annabel, Georgie, and so so many more.

“You couldn’t save her.” He hissed. “You didn’t save them. You will never save anyone.” Mary stared in horror at the scene before her. The blood. The bodies. This wasn’t meant to happen. She didn’t want them to get hurt like this. The fear sits on her like a pillow over her mouth and nose. Enough air gets by it, allowing her body to keep functioning, but it's crippling all the same. She could only stand stock-still as her insides died slowly. There wasn't an adult she knew who could handle this other than her. She was supposed to stop this. She had to save them, and yet she failed. And their still bodies were enough evidence of that. Her mind searches for a way out of the pain and fear. She was terrified, justifiably so, yet she had no way to escape this nightmare. She didn’t even know where she was. This couldn’t be the real world, right? It couldn’t be! And she couldn’t bear the thought of losing any of them for real. She had to get away. But when she looked that horrid beast in the eyes, she doubted that that was even possible.

She suddenly felt the force let go of her.

“So.” He growled, “What are you going to try now?”

She didn’t need to answer. It was pretty easy to see her plan when she suddenly turned back on her heel, and bolted back away from the bedroom. She couldn’t hear him following her, but she daren’t turn around to check. Nausea settled in her stomach as she scurried back to the hallway, hoping beyond hope that if she went back to where it all began, by some miracle it would end there, too. The thin passage was growing ever tighter as she forced her way through, gasping the whole way, but nothing was enough to catch her breath, almost as if she shared the condition of her suffocated sister. Her image flashed through her mind as she fought back tears, desperate not to think of her, or anyone else’s panicked screams. Why didn’t she do something? Why?! Surely there had to have been a way to overcome that force. She let them die!

With each door she passed in the long corridor, they were violently flung open as what had to be the same shadowy monsters as the one that had tormented her poured out into the cramped space. More flooded from each door than the last, and before she knew it, she was backed against the mirrored wall with the beasts in front of her, slowing encroaching in. The one that murdered her family stood at the back of the group, towering over them all, with a satisfied smirk laying over his features. With a snap of his tendrils the sconces along the walls went out one by one, until they stood in total darkness and they were still coming closer.

Louder. Louder. Louder. Their voices grew in volume as they screamed over and over of her failings. Never letting her forget that she wasn’t practically perfect, as she said. In fact, they were determined for her to know she was the furthest thing from perfect, as if she was some disgraceful monster that was somehow lower than they were. Yes, she wasn’t perfect, but she didn’t kill them. She did everything in her power, but failed to stop the foul creature from causing such harm. She wasn’t evil. She hadn’t meant for this to happen. It wasn’t her fault. It couldn’t be.

Pressing further back against the wall, she hoped beyond hope that everything would stop. Their clawing hands were almost close enough to gouge at her skin, and had she not been phasing through the mirror, they would have most likely cut her to pieces. Wait, what. She looked back and saw the mirror itself was opening up and her back had sunk through to whatever world lay on the other side. She had no idea where it would take her, but as she looked back at the mob in front, she didn’t need to be told to run into the strange world, where she could only hope and pray that things could finally, finally, go back to at least something that resembled something normal.


	8. The Intruder

A sudden scream cut through the silence. Had anyone else been in the house, they may very well have been startled awake as suddenly as the screamer had. And she was especially startled, for she couldn’t recall a time since her childhood when she had made a sound even close to something like that. Mary shot up from her place in bed, throwing the covers from herself and pulling on a nightgown that happened to be hanging on the door leading out of a small bedroom. It took only a moment for her to realise that this was in her room on Cherry Tree Lane. Looking around her, she waited to see if that voice would return again, but for the moment, everything was silent, leaving Mary to wonder what might lie outside her room. Gingerly, she opened the door to the nursery.

She didn’t see the shadow pass her window.

Upon entering the nursery, she was horrified to find that it was empty, though she was hardly surprised. She needed to find a way out of this nightmare if she was going to help Jack and the children. She tried to control her breathing once more, talking quietly to herself the whole time as she left the room in search of anything that might be a sign of what was to come next.

She couldn’t help but notice that the house looked fairly normal. The only unusual thing was that it seemed to be completely void of life, despite the clocks stating that it was half past nine. When she checked the other rooms on the upper floor, she noticed, upon looking out the window, that the sun seemed to have just set, which was enough to tell her that it was summer. That and the stifling heat that lingered all throughout the house despite being so late.

The house itself was extremely tidy, as if nobody was even living there. It was certainly an eerie feeling considering the usual chaos it held. Afterall, she’d just been dealing with a broken streetlight before all this strange magic started to toil with her. She rather wished she could go back to that more usual chaos rather than spending her time in this strange universe.

After searching each bedroom, she made it downstairs. Again, it was miraculously tidy and void of life. She couldn’t help but notice as she looked around, that things had appeared to be missing. Either that or hidden away in a new cupboard somewhere. The children’s toys, for example, seemed to be few in number. Even Gillie had vanished. And as she passed the front door, she noticed that the hats and coats that normally hung adjacent had been taken. Simple things like this made the house look more like a show home, leaving Mary even more suspicious of what sort of horrid creature she was going to have to deal with jumping out at her from goodness knows where.

Then there was a click.

It was definitely there. While it was certainly quiet, the silence made it stand out a lot more, especially with how on edge Mary found herself. There came a small creak, next, and some shuffling. It was coming from upstairs. This must have been the strange thing she was going to have to face. She already assumed that the doors would be locked, considering how things had been so far. So, in a bid to feel a little more confident in her next course of action, she grabbed a fire poker from the front room, and headed back to the stairs.

Praying none of the steps would creak, she carefully made her way upstairs, her bare feet allowing her greater ease in her silent approach. The intruder was clearly trying to do the same, as their footsteps were definitely quieter than they should be when walking on a wooden or tiled floor such as the ones in the rooms on the upper floor. Upon reaching the landing, she realised the noise was coming from the nursery, and couldn’t help but wonder what sort of monster-under-the-bed kind of thing she was going to be faced with when she opened the door. So, she paused by the door, taking a deep breath as her definitely not shaking hand reached for the handle. And in one swift motion, she opened the door and charged.

She didn’t even take the chance to get a look at her enemy. Standing in the dark room meant they were merely a silhouette highlighted by the moon peering through the open balcony door from behind. They must have picked the lock. It registered that that they were a similar height to her, and held a sort of stick. It was almost enough to make her think she was facing her own shadow. Though she knew that that couldn’t be possible, even here, unless her shadow had suddenly turned into a man. Still, it was pretty clear that they were most likely an equal match, so she was more than happy to make the first move and take a swing, hitting them right in the stomach.

The figure doubled over in pain, letting out a quiet grunt, and Mary took the opportunity, to go for another hit. But upon bringing down the metal bar for the second time, the figure reached up and grabbed it before it could make contact.

“Mary, stop! It’s me!” The voice certainly sounded winded, as they could only just wheeze out their words, but despite this, she still had an idea of who this was. And upon reaching back to switch on the light, her suspicions were confirmed.

“Jack? What are you doing here? Are you alright?” The leerie straightened up, but when he looked at her, it was quite clear that he was deeply concerned about something. Reaching out, Jack took her by the shoulders in a bid to calm her shaking that she hadn’t even noticed.

“Are you kidding? I should be asking you. Has someone broken in?” Now it was Mary’s turn to be confused. She was rather surprised to see Jack keep glancing past her as if he was expecting a knife-wielding thug to come running in at any moment.

“What are you talking about?”

“I heard you scream while I was doing the light outside, so I thought someone had gotten in.”

“No, I’m fine. I’m more worried about everyone else. They’re gone.” Jack looked at her as if she’d grown a third head.

“Of course they are, did you forget about the holiday?” He asked. “They’ve gone to visit Kate’s parents. They left yesterday.”

“That’s impossible, Georgie broke the lamp this morning.” He paused for a moment, reaching up to press the back of his hand against her forehead.

“Are you feeling alright?”

“Yes, there’s nothing wrong with me.” She snapped, batting his hand away. “I’m perfectly healthy.” He looked doubtful.

“You feel a little warm. That’s probably what did it.”

“Did what?”

“Made you have a weird dream. I’m assuming that’s why you thought you saw Georgie today. But I guess it turned into a nightmare, too, huh? That’s why you were screaming.”

At that moment, everything seemed to click back into place. Of course, yes, how could she forget. They left to visit Kate’s parents for the anniversary of her passing. She hadn’t wanted to intrude on their mourning, so she stayed back. Ellen was staying with her sister, so Mary had the house to herself for the weekend. And now that he had mentioned it, she did feel a little nauseous. She must have accidentally eaten something out of date. It was silly really. Jack had climbed up from the street, probably thinking someone was trying to murder her. And all he found was a confused nanny. Nightmares were children’s problem. She shouldn’t have been causing such a fuss with one.

Mary had always had very strange dreams, showing her things that were strange even by her standards. That was expected for someone of her unique ability. But she’d always been able to tell the difference between a dream and reality, enough that she could often take control to stop it from turning into a nightmare, if it appeared to be heading that way. But she’d never had such an unusual dream like that. Nightmares were rare, and to have one that was so realistic or mixed her real life with another world, were certainly uncommon. Jack was probably right. It must have been a fever dream. Though that didn’t mean the issues that her mind had come up with were easily disregarded. Those fears were all too real. But that was her business and her business alone.

“Don’t worry about me.” She said, “I don’t want to keep you with something so silly.”

“If it was enough to make you scream like that, then it can’t be that silly. What happened?” Mary sighed and perched on John’s bed by the door, Jack joining her.

“I just saw every time I’ve failed to help people properly.”

“Oh,” he chuckled, “one of them. They’re the worst.” Jack’s smile was just enough to coax one out of Mary, too.

“Yes, but it was more major things than what you’re probably thinking of.”

“Like what?”

“The children.” Jack tilted his head slightly, not sure what she meant. “It’s just that, every child I’ve come to help, I’ve always been too late for. The damage has always been done by the time I get to them.” Jack seemed to be surprised by this, leaning away slightly with the look of a man who’d just seen the sky turn green. Since when did Mary Poppins ever say that she wasn’t practically perfect?

“The Banks kids are alright.”

“Maybe now. But the death of their mother has changed them in ways that would never had happened if she was still here. They may be happier, but they’re still much more mature than they should be for their age. I should have come earlier to help them cope.”

“Mary,” he sighed, placing a hand on her shoulder, and offering a smile, “I don’t know what to say. You’re only one woman, even if you are magic. There’s nothing you could have done for Kate, and the kids would have changed whether you came early or not.”

“Well, what about you then?”

“Huh?”

“I wasn’t there to help with your parents. I wasn’t there when you were on the streets. I only cam when Bert asked for help.”

“And you came when it mattered the most. You’re not a miracle worker. You can’t help everyone, and you can’t keep people safe from everything. You just help wherever you can to make things easier at the time. And you do a great job at that. And let’s face it,” he laughed, “I don’t think you could’ve done much for my parents. They were beyond saving. Even for you.”

Mary sighed, lowering her head. It hurt to have him say that. As far as she knew, they weren’t too far gone. She knew her capabilities and knew that it couldn’t be true, not unless they were bad enough to be locked away for eternity. But she wasn’t sure if she wanted to say that out loud. Her biggest fear was if someone were to question why she hadn’t done something she could’ve very easily done. If Jack knew what she had been able to achieve with other families, then maybe he wouldn’t have looked at her so favourably. But he was right. She was just one woman. She had to prioritise, and unfortunately, in the time it took to help one family, the others on her list would get much worse. She would probably never be able to push through the load quick enough to have her top priority wind up being a family with barely any issues. But that didn’t mean it hurt any less when she failed them. And when she tried to look at him, she couldn’t help but remember the fear in his eyes in that dream. How he’d struggled and gasped for breath as he was attacked. It was almost as bad as the way he had been so scared when she first met him as a boy. And every second of it was enough to break her heart.

“If you really want more families to be helped sooner, you need more people. But I think everyone can appreciate the fact that you’re one of a kind.”

“I’m just surprised nobody’s gotten upset about it yet.”

“Doesn’t that just speak for itself then. Nobody’s going to complain that you’re not doing enough when you’re already working so hard.” She looked back at him and was greeted with a fond smile, and eyes that told her that he genuinely meant what she said. And hearing something like that coming from Jack, the one she’d always felt the most guilty about, allowed a huge weight to be lifted from her heart. Maybe it was alright. She was only one person. She couldn’t save the world. But she could certainly make a difference.

“Thank you, Jack. It certainly helps to hear that from you.”

“Well, I’m more than happy to help. You going to be alright now?”

“Yes, I think I will. I might just have a cup of tea and head back to bed.”

“Then I’ll leave you to your night, then. I’ll see you tomorrow, then. G’night.”

“Goodnight to you too, Jack.”

She watched him leave, making sure he got back down to the street alright, before waving goodbye. And as he cycled back down the street to head back home for the night, she thought on what he said. He was right. Of course he was. For some reason, she was never ready to hear him say something so wise. He didn’t look like the type. But he was good with people. He always knew what to say. And while she knew deep down that that skill came from a horrid place, he had been able to use it to better his life for the future. So maybe it wasn’t all so bad, afterall. She couldn’t save everyone, but she could make things better for the future. And at least that was better than nothing.

Now, how about that cup of tea?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This whole fic has been a weird one to write, but it was certainly fun to do something a little more experimental. I hope you enjoyed it, too!


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